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This article is 100% wrong. Russia's misinformation campaign against the U.S. is 100% the cause of our current national discord. Our entire culture has been m

This article is 100% wrong. Russia's misinformation campaign against the U.S. is 100% the cause of our current national discord. Our entire culture has been maliciously and actively poisoned by a proven state sponsored attack on the U.S. and Western Europe. Everything in the past decade needs to be re-evaluated and filtered through the lens of Russian disinformation. Day in and day out, for over 10 years, the Russian government has been posting millions and millions of divisive and destabilizing messages online, amplifying the most controversial topics and creating true distrust and hatred among fellow Americans. Their efforts happened to occur along with the unprecedented rise of smart phones, which enabled this campaign conceived during the Obama administration, to have success beyond Russia's wildest dreams. Additionally, there have been thousands of spies sent to the U.S. in order to infiltrate Congressional and Presidential offices, military personnel and business leaders. How many Russian spies have you heard of? Last night I watched PBS Frontline where I learned of yet another one: the former CEO of Overstock's girlfriend was revealed to be a spy by the FBI (Maria Butina). He was the guy funding and pushing for recount efforts like in Arizona. I remember reading about her, but didn't realize the connection with "stop the steal". We need to respond. Aggressively and radically. We need to pardon the Jan 6th insurrectionists (I'm a liberal Democrat, mind you) and start a national campaign of de-russification. (As someone named Russ, I don't state that lightly. Haha. Sorry dumb joke.) The reactions to what I'm saying will be predictable: 1) I'm oversimplifying or exaggerating. I'm not. This is all fact. 2) I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm somehow trying to target Republicans because I hate freedom. I'm not spreading a narrative. I'm trying desperately to understand why articles like this from the Atlantic keep trying to explain the state of the country, when we already know the answer. When is the majority of the country going to realize we've been played and react appropriately??

mathlover2 5y ago
Wait, why pardon the Jan 6th people? Just because one's been mislead by misinformation to believe something false doesn't mean that they are blameless for flagrantly breaking the law in response.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  I think the idea is to paint Jan 6 as an aberration for which the participants were deliberately mislead by a foreign power and therefore somehow less responsible for their actions. IMHO its a dangerous step to take. The rule of law is the founding bedrock of civil society where justice needs not only to be done, but seen to be done. The US hasn't helped itself by having two justice systems, one for the elites and one for the plebs. I don't think offering an olive branch to people dedicated to the overthrow of elections could possibly work. Not only would it encourage more violence, but it would be a disastrous failure of justice. This was not legit political discourse as some politicians are trying to paint it. Its just a good old fashioned illegal riot.
  - russellbeattie 5y ago
    Yes, an olive branch is exactly what my idea was. I think your contrary opinion is totally valid way to look at it. What I'm talking about would definitely be a gamble.
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      I'd be happy if something could be offered as an olive branch as long as it fits within the normal sentencing leniency (i.e. suspended sentences, community service etc) other than for violent offenders.
  - redmen 5y ago
    It's not my fault, it's society's fault. Society put those ideas in my head lol
redmen 5y ago
You are giving too much credit to Putin. All he did was identify already-existing issues and fuel them further. Saying this: "The reactions to what I'm saying will be predictable" is a good attempt but doesn't really work I've found. Of course it's predictable, that doesn't make it incorrect. Yes you guys have been played, but if you didn't see huge growing divisions within the united States well before Putin started to use social media then I don't know what to tell you. I hope readers here can see that spammers and bad actors have been using social media to affect opinion for years and years before Putin was utilizing them to his benefit. You silicon valley guys set up a system that became doomed to fail. Trump and Putin are just catalyzing an already-collapsing system. I understand that you are angry, it comes out in your text. But the way out of this is not to add more fuel to the fire unless you want to speed up the natural process of a decaying empire. Everyone loses faith in their empire eventually. You see it in the increasing selfishness, fear and greed, no? Killing Putin won't do much at this point except to temporarily satisfy the anger. An analogy to me is the USA is sick and Putin is just an opportunistic parasite. A strong, healthy host would be able to defend itself. "2) I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm somehow trying to target Republicans because I hate freedom. I'm not spreading a narrative. I'm trying desperately to understand why articles like this from the Atlantic keep trying to explain the state of the country, when we already know the answer." Like a disease, what started from a single cause quickly becomes multifaceted. At that point fixing the original cause is no longer enough. It's useful to know so it doesn't repeat, however. As you can see in your example, during times of high stress people break down into what they care about most. Some into their love of freedom, others in their need to help. Some take risks under pressure, others hide. You can see the left and right divide based on a few of these and then everyone else gets pulled in by social gravity. Most of us believe what we believe out of loneliness, purpose, identity, not logic. I am on the other side. I have zero faith in our institutions as they have literally killed my friends and destroyed my life. And so I have adopted a more libertarian perspective since I have experienced more good coming from individuals with good hearts than any of my experiences with our healthcare or education systems. That doesn't mean I am correct. And I would be incredibly naive to not accept that there needs to be a healthy balance between all.
- redmen 5y ago
  To add to this.. Us Americans I don't think understand how many other parts of the world don't like us. If you want evidence of this go travel, and see how people treat you, then watch their eyes light up if you tell them you are a Canadian and not American. If it wasn't Putin it would be someone else eventually. You can't win the whack-a-mole game forever. Let's say we could repeat things without Putin. Facebook and Google and tech companies would have kept growing naively, making it easier and easier to break the system over time. Eventually some team somewhere would infect social media and use it against the USA. I would actually argue that when humans are exposed to too much information their ability to make rational decisions actually goes down, and we are more likely to use our emotion to make decisions. If you e ever felt burnt out, and overwhelmed by decisions you'll likely have felt something like this. It is inevitable in my eyes. I think us humans make the mistake of thinking history happens because of the names. It doesn't.
pessimizer 5y ago
The problem with the country is that the bulk of it has retreated into paranoid fantasies.
- russellbeattie 5y ago
  I totally agree. What I'm pointing out is the reason they're all paranoid isn't something natural. It's a result of Russian disinformation campaign. Many of the people who got fooled will go to their graves believing that the election was stolen, etc. We have to accept a certain portion of the populace is a lost cause. However, everybody else who isn't completely delusional needs to understand what's happening. My honest belief is that if enough people can start to realize the root cause of our current national schism, suddenly things will make more sense. Eventually there will be enough people on both the left and the right that understand who the real enemy is, and will realize that those pushing for a culture war are doing Russia's work for them.
  - redmen 5y ago
    Hasn't it happened many times throughout history? It might not appear natural as we can identify a direct cause of it.. But who's to say it wouldn't happen in some other form with different actors if it didn't happen with Putin?

mathlover2 5y ago

Wait, why pardon the Jan 6th people? Just because one's been mislead by misinformation to believe something false doesn't mean that they are blameless for flagrantly breaking the law in response.

smackeyacky 5y ago
I think the idea is to paint Jan 6 as an aberration for which the participants were deliberately mislead by a foreign power and therefore somehow less responsible for their actions. IMHO its a dangerous step to take. The rule of law is the founding bedrock of civil society where justice needs not only to be done, but seen to be done. The US hasn't helped itself by having two justice systems, one for the elites and one for the plebs. I don't think offering an olive branch to people dedicated to the overthrow of elections could possibly work. Not only would it encourage more violence, but it would be a disastrous failure of justice. This was not legit political discourse as some politicians are trying to paint it. Its just a good old fashioned illegal riot.
- russellbeattie 5y ago
  Yes, an olive branch is exactly what my idea was. I think your contrary opinion is totally valid way to look at it. What I'm talking about would definitely be a gamble.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    I'd be happy if something could be offered as an olive branch as long as it fits within the normal sentencing leniency (i.e. suspended sentences, community service etc) other than for violent offenders.
- redmen 5y ago
  It's not my fault, it's society's fault. Society put those ideas in my head lol

redmen 5y ago

You are giving too much credit to Putin. All he did was identify already-existing issues and fuel them further. Saying this: "The reactions to what I'm saying will be predictable" is a good attempt but doesn't really work I've found. Of course it's predictable, that doesn't make it incorrect. Yes you guys have been played, but if you didn't see huge growing divisions within the united States well before Putin started to use social media then I don't know what to tell you. I hope readers here can see that spammers and bad actors have been using social media to affect opinion for years and years before Putin was utilizing them to his benefit. You silicon valley guys set up a system that became doomed to fail. Trump and Putin are just catalyzing an already-collapsing system. I understand that you are angry, it comes out in your text. But the way out of this is not to add more fuel to the fire unless you want to speed up the natural process of a decaying empire. Everyone loses faith in their empire eventually. You see it in the increasing selfishness, fear and greed, no? Killing Putin won't do much at this point except to temporarily satisfy the anger. An analogy to me is the USA is sick and Putin is just an opportunistic parasite. A strong, healthy host would be able to defend itself. "2) I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm somehow trying to target Republicans because I hate freedom. I'm not spreading a narrative. I'm trying desperately to understand why articles like this from the Atlantic keep trying to explain the state of the country, when we already know the answer." Like a disease, what started from a single cause quickly becomes multifaceted. At that point fixing the original cause is no longer enough. It's useful to know so it doesn't repeat, however. As you can see in your example, during times of high stress people break down into what they care about most. Some into their love of freedom, others in their need to help. Some take risks under pressure, others hide. You can see the left and right divide based on a few of these and then everyone else gets pulled in by social gravity. Most of us believe what we believe out of loneliness, purpose, identity, not logic. I am on the other side. I have zero faith in our institutions as they have literally killed my friends and destroyed my life. And so I have adopted a more libertarian perspective since I have experienced more good coming from individuals with good hearts than any of my experiences with our healthcare or education systems. That doesn't mean I am correct. And I would be incredibly naive to not accept that there needs to be a healthy balance between all.

redmen 5y ago
To add to this.. Us Americans I don't think understand how many other parts of the world don't like us. If you want evidence of this go travel, and see how people treat you, then watch their eyes light up if you tell them you are a Canadian and not American. If it wasn't Putin it would be someone else eventually. You can't win the whack-a-mole game forever. Let's say we could repeat things without Putin. Facebook and Google and tech companies would have kept growing naively, making it easier and easier to break the system over time. Eventually some team somewhere would infect social media and use it against the USA. I would actually argue that when humans are exposed to too much information their ability to make rational decisions actually goes down, and we are more likely to use our emotion to make decisions. If you e ever felt burnt out, and overwhelmed by decisions you'll likely have felt something like this. It is inevitable in my eyes. I think us humans make the mistake of thinking history happens because of the names. It doesn't.

pessimizer 5y ago

The problem with the country is that the bulk of it has retreated into paranoid fantasies.

russellbeattie 5y ago
I totally agree. What I'm pointing out is the reason they're all paranoid isn't something natural. It's a result of Russian disinformation campaign. Many of the people who got fooled will go to their graves believing that the election was stolen, etc. We have to accept a certain portion of the populace is a lost cause. However, everybody else who isn't completely delusional needs to understand what's happening. My honest belief is that if enough people can start to realize the root cause of our current national schism, suddenly things will make more sense. Eventually there will be enough people on both the left and the right that understand who the real enemy is, and will realize that those pushing for a culture war are doing Russia's work for them.
- redmen 5y ago
  Hasn't it happened many times throughout history? It might not appear natural as we can identify a direct cause of it.. But who's to say it wouldn't happen in some other form with different actors if it didn't happen with Putin?